Searching for Beautiful (4 page)

“He told me he didn’t have one. Why would I assume he lied about that?”

“Whatever. That doesn’t explain the rest of it. I thought we were friends.” Diana shakes her head. “I guess all these years meant nothing to you if you can’t tell us the truth. We don’t even know who you are anymore, Brynn.” A single tear leaks out of her eye.

With that, they turn their backs on me and walk away.

I don’t know who I am anymore, either.

Chapter Six

Before

“We should go out tonight. I don’t feel like being in the house.” Ellie looks at me from my computer chair. I’m curled up on my bed in my pajamas. It’s Friday night. We love hanging out on the weekends, but how can I ever go out again? They shouldn’t expect me to.

“I don’t feel like it.” I trace the pattern on my headboard with my finger, every curl of green leaves and vines. All the delicate flowers Mom spent hours painting for my birthday this year. It’s still here and she’s not. She hasn’t been here for a month now.

I wish I could make something, the way she did. I used to be able to. But I haven’t touched my pottery since she’s been gone.

“I think you should,” Ellie adds. “Even just the mall or something. You can’t spend all your time locked in the house like…”

My father?

A hermit?

The loneliest person in the world?

I feel like them all. I don’t think there will be a day when I don’t feel like I’m all of those things. Maybe that’s the way it should be. There isn’t an answer book to this type of thing.

“What about Ian?” Diana adds. “You’ve been ignoring him. All he wants is to be there for you, Brynn. We all do.” I know it’s true; I do, at least with her and Ellie. But knowing and reacting are two different things. I can’t make myself do the latter.

My lips stretch into a half smile to placate them. I don’t tell them Ian is calling me less and less. That I’m not calling him at all, though I’m sure they know that part, since I’m not calling them, either. “I’m tired… I don’t know…”
My mom is gone!
I want to tell them. My best friend in the world is gone and I hate the way things were left between us. Why can’t they understand?

“Okay, so you relax tonight, but you have to go to Ian’s birthday party tomorrow. That’s, like, a girlfriend duty.” Ellie comes over and sits next to me on the bed. “I know you miss her…”

If she knows, then why is she talking to me about girlfriend duty? Parties and movies don’t mean anything to me right now.

“God, she was the coolest, right? Your mom was so awesome. I always wished she was mine.” This from Diana.

“Oh, you remember that one time…”

They launch into stories about my mom. Stories about her like she was theirs. Like they miss her as much as I do. Like it’s okay to sit here and talk about her as though it’s not a big deal that she’s gone. It
is
a big deal. The biggest deal, and they’re laughing and talking and I hate that I can’t do it, too. I hate that I’m mad at them for it.

They go straight from that into Ian’s party and what they’re wearing and,
oh, Brynn, I think you should wear
, and I nod when I’m supposed to and reply when I’m supposed to, but somehow their words leave me feeling more and more empty inside.

For some reason, I don’t want to share my thoughts or memories of her with them right now. I don’t want anyone else to talk about her.

That’s a lie. I want
Dad
to talk about her.

“Brynn? Did you hear me?” I snap out of it and look at Diana.

She frowns and grabs my hand. “You didn’t even hear any of that, did you?” She doesn’t give me time to answer before she continues. “I know you’re sad and we get that, but we can’t help if you don’t talk to us. Talk to someone. Your mom would want that.”

It’s those words that shove me over the edge. I can’t believe they would tell me what my mom wants. That they think they can say to talk it out and I just can. She didn’t have to find her mom dead.

Clay mixes with water down the drain as I wash my hands. I’m still frowning, still annoyed at Mom, but my eyes keep flashing to the vase I just made and I can’t stop thinking… She would love it. I love it, but I know she would even more. Mom’s always been into thinner, longer designs and that’s exactly how this one came out.

As frustrated as I am at her, excitement still skitters through me when I think of how she’ll react when she sees it. Mom loves it when I create things. It feels good to make her proud that she picked me.

But she also had an attitude with me today for no reason. She’s been on my back all day. Serves her right if I don’t show it to her right now.

Deciding against telling her, I turn off the faucet in my pottery room and head for the door.

I count the steps from my room to the back door. Fifteen. Shaking my head, I giggle when I think of how crazy it is to count my movements as though that will make it take longer to get inside. I’ve already been out here longer than I need to be, so I finally just push the door open.

See her legs on the floor as I push it farther and farther.

My heart starts to jackhammer.
What is she doing on the floor? What is she doing on the floor?

Her waist.

“Mom!” The door hits the counter as I shove it open.

“Mom!” My legs collapse from under me and I hit the floor.

She’s not moving. Not talking. I’m afraid to see if she’s breathing.

No, no, no.
“Mom? Please! Please, wake up.” The words break apart as I speak them. My tears fall on her as I pull her head to my lap. Holding her, I struggle to get my cell out of my pocket. My fingers shake as I dial 911, my free hand running through her hair like she does with me.

The woman who answers hardly gets out any words before I yell, “Help. Please. Help me!”

“Brynn?” Diana snaps me out of the memory. One look at her tells me she’s frustrated. “We’re going to go. Think about what I said, okay?” She stands and then so does Ellie.

“Do you want us to pick you up tomorrow?” Ellie asks.

“No,” I manage to say, tracing the headboard again. “I’ll meet you there.”

“What time?” Diana asks.

“Umm…seven?” I feel like I’m on autopilot, saying what I’m supposed to and not feeling any of it.

“Okay, we’ll see you then.”

“Love ya,” they both say.

“Love you, too…”

I can’t make myself go to the party. I can’t make myself answer the phone. And when I go back to school, it’s a struggle just to hang out with my friends.

The worst part is I know they’re right. Mom wouldn’t want this for me, even if I did sit in my pottery room being angry at her while she was dying.

I wish I could be as good as she was.

Chapter Seven

September

Now

My parents met at a high school dance. Mom used to tell me about it all the time, how Dad didn’t go to her school but he’d been at the dance with someone else, and the second their eyes locked from across the room, she knew he was someone special.

She told me how he’d asked her to dance. How he’d called her
his
beautiful lady in Italian. She said when his arms wrapped around her, she felt dizzy, and in that moment, she knew she loved him.

Ever since the first time I heard that story, two things were true about me. First, I was a total romantic. I wanted a love like Mom and Dad’s. I wanted to be someone’s beautiful, maybe even fall in love just like they had.

Second, I’ve always looked forward to school. Don’t ask me how I brought those two things together—maybe since it was a school dance or because I wanted to believe I’d find my true love at a young age. Or maybe it was because the first time I thought I fell in love, it was at school, in the seventh grade. But whatever the reason, I loved school. Thrived in it.

Now, the thought makes me sick to my stomach.

I can’t stop staring in the mirror of my armoire, looking for some sort of sign that I’ve changed in the last few months. That spending the summer without my friends, alternating between the house and my pottery room, working to create something that just won’t come to me, is enough punishment. That watching my dad try to talk to me, when he can hardly look me in the eyes, is enough of a prison. That knowing I once had life inside me—even if only for a little while—only to have it stolen, is enough torture.

I’ve paid for Jason’s sins
and
mine, and now I’m not the same Brynn anymore.

I can’t find those signs I’m looking for.

Nothing tells me this nightmare is over. That when I show up at school today, Ellie and Diana will hug me. Tell me they’re sorry for not believing in me and that they want to be best friends again. That Ian will tell me I didn’t deserve what Jason did to me, and that even though we have a past together, he wants to be friends, too.

We can’t go back and I know that. I don’t even want to, because I will never trust another boy with my heart or my body again, but I want back as many parts of my “before” life as I can have. Selfish, maybe, but true.

“Knock, knock,” Dad says from my open doorway. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” I shrug.

“How are you doing?” He’s studying the white metal of my armoire, picking at the peeling paint as though he’s never noticed it before. He’s all dressed up in his suit for work. His black hair is thinning, and I can’t help but wonder what Mom would say if she could see it. If she’d tease him like they loved to do or if she’d keep quiet because she’d have a little gray in hers. Or a couple wrinkles around her mouth. She probably wouldn’t, though. It hasn’t been very long, and I know Dad’s aging is because she’s gone.

“Okay.” Picking up my brush, I run it through my hair, wishing my answer were true. I’m scared to death to show my face at school. Scared to see the looks from everyone else. Hear the stories of summer parties I missed. See my group of five that used to be six.

I have no doubt everyone knows. I can’t help but wonder if even after a summer, it’s just as fresh for them as it is for me.

“Are you sure?”

My eyes catch his in the mirror. He holds them, and it’s like a time machine, briefly making me feel like nothing has changed. Maybe if we keep looking at each other like this it will make things easier.

“Yes.”

Dad gives me his ten billionth sad sigh. “Brynn…do you want to do this? Maybe we can look into online school or something. I know they have programs like that now. You’d just have to go in once a week or so. That might be…easier.”

Wow. It sounds like he already looked into this. The thought makes my palms sweat. If Dad’s worried it’ll be this bad, it’ll probably be worse than I thought.

My first instinct is to jump at the opportunity—scream “Yes!” because I don’t ever want to face my friends again. I don’t want to see the accusation in their eyes. Watch as they run my lies through their heads and turn them into something more than they were.

My only other option is to keep wandering around here, though. To have to look at Dad through a mirror because it somehow gives him the distance he needs to really be able to do it. To
see
Brynn and not the daughter who got pregnant and lost a baby at sixteen.

No, thank you.

“I have to go back to school, Dad. Maybe it won’t be that bad.”

His eyes dart away from mine. “Okay. Call me if you need anything. I love you.” And I know he does. He might not be good with words, even worse so with Mom gone, but Dad loves me. He loved us both.
If all this didn’t change how he feels. If this didn’t make him think choosing me turned into more hassle than I’m worth.

With a kiss to the top of my head, he walks out. Love me or not, it’s the first time he’s kissed me since before.

…

Eyes follow me all day.

Whispers, but no one actually speaks
to
me. There’s an invisible force field around me, keeping anyone from getting too close when I walk down the hallways. All my female teachers hug me. All the male teachers look at me awkwardly.

It’s not like it is in the movies. People don’t put signs on my back or shove mean notes in my puke-green locker. They don’t cough while muttering “slut” under their breath or trip me in the hallway or anything like that. Mean girls and bullies would almost be better, because right now, it’s like I don’t matter enough for anything. I’m not worth the time to pick on, but I’m still the black widow no one wants to get close to. Silence sometimes hurts more than anything.

For the first time in my life, I’m an outcast.

I used to be Ellie and Diana’s best friend—the girl who kicked ass at pottery. I was Ian’s girlfriend. Runner-up to Diana for sophomore winter formal princess. I had friends. Tons of them, and now, just like with Dad, people struggle to look me in the eyes. No one knows what to make of the girl who got knocked up by the small-town baseball star, only to lose it all. Lose my baby. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the pain.

Unlike with Jason, it was always a real baby to me.
I lost my baby…
The thought makes my heart hurt but I struggle to ignore it.

I spend lunch in the bathroom. Yes, the bathroom. Only in southern Oregon would it rain the first day back at school. We usually have more time before the deluge starts, but I guess it’s fitting. Since we have a closed campus, the whole student body packs into the cafeteria. There’s no way I can be in there. Feel that many eyes on me at once.

Because I’m not desperate enough to actually eat in here, I shove my lunch into the trash. Like this morning, I look in the mirror, waiting, hoping to see something that isn’t there. When I hear the door creak, I push away from the sink, scramble into a stall, and close the door. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it. It’s easier to be ignored in a classroom of people than by one or two girls in the restroom who will be scared to talk to me, but unable not to look at me.

“I can’t believe summer is over already!” Diana’s voice mixes with the sound of the door opening.